Here Are A Few Important Things E-Book Sellers Aren't Bragging About

Glancing at your bulging bookshelf and then over at your slim reader might make you wonder if paper books will someday go the way of the dinosaur in favor of e-books. For a few reasons at least, hang on to those paper copies, as there are still some drawbacks to reading electronic fare.

SmartMoney goes through 10 things you e-books won’t tell you, presenting a case for those who still like physical copies of their literature.

There’s no such thing as “one-reader-fits all”: Switching from one brand of e-reader to another isn’t going to be easy, at least when it comes to bringing along all the books you’ve already purchased. Publishers say they aren’t really your books, you’ve only bought access to them. And if you could just copy a book from one device to another, what’s to keep someone from handing out “free” books to all of their friends? Better to just pick one brand and stick with it.

Sales are fleeting: E-books can be repriced easier than regular books, since there aren’t any concerns like physical inventory and there’s only one point-of-sale system to deal with. That means a sale can happen in the flash of an eye and then be gone again before you know it. Definitely not the same as browsing the dollar bin and scoring a copy of Pride and Prejudice.

Borrowing from the library ain’t easy: Think you can just borrow books from your library via an e-reader app? It’s not that great — bestsellers are rarely available and the selection doesn’t encompass that many books. Only about two-thirds of public libraries even offer e-book borrowing, and a small percentage of their catalogs are available, at that. This is partly due to publishers not allowing their e-books to be lent out at all or attempting to restrict the number of times a library can lend out a particular book before repurchasing rights to it.